


hum

by kinpika



Series: BLUE [7]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, M/M, spoilers for retribution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 22:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19238341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinpika/pseuds/kinpika
Summary: But where does that put you?An almost haunting question, if you were to let it linger, fester in the back of your mind. Take it one day at a time. Shake your fingers out, when you shut the door behind you. Static striking through your hand, numb.You swear, this doesn't change anything.





	hum

**Author's Note:**

> Partial sequel to: [thunder and applause](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19238278)

“What are you thinking about?”

Even though the question is whispered, lips brushing against her temple, you feel like you’ve filled the room. You don’t open your eyes, feeling the way she tenses a fraction under your hands instead. If you look, you’ll break the spell.

And even though Logan is a master of control, the slow steady breathing almost passing as her being asleep, it’s like a suggestion. Burrowing into your mind, that even with a leg over your hip, head tucked under your chin and fingers curled into your shirt, she was awake.

So were you. Not like either of you could truly sleep after what had happened barely twelve hours ago.

Logan doesn’t so much as give you a notice that she was awake. Some days, you wish you could read her mind. Crack open her skull, and get all those little thoughts out. Always just when you start to pull on a thread, there’s something else. Another hook, pulling you left, right, _out_.

“He won’t give up on you, you know. Even with the truth.”

That was the charm about Ortega, and you remember magazines plastered with his smile, how they papered your walls. Honest words, in between the waffling on about his suit, and the whispers that he would never be like Hood. Meeting him, after all those years of watching interviews and huddling around newspaper articles never really gave you the full picture. Until he had smiled at you, broad and sweeping, firm handshake and ‘good to meet you, Daniel’.

Whoever that person was, though, hadn’t walked out of your apartment. Hunched shoulders and red rimmed eyes. Hesitating on your doorstep, until you had shut the front door. There he’d stared at the ground. _You didn’t have to do this, Daniel. But… I appreciate it_. Carefully picked words, plucked from the specific scripts given whenever there was a villain to take down. None of the warm behind them, just the calm indifference he tried so hard to perfect.

You hadn’t mean to lay a hand on his shoulder, to encourage him to look up. Never thought you would see the day that it would be you, getting Ortega to unfurl. Solid under your hand, the hum of life teasing you, convincing you that it was alright. _She does love you, Ortega. I know she does._

 _But where does that put you?_ An almost haunting question, if you were to let it linger, fester in the back of your mind. Take it one day at a time. Shake your fingers out, when you shut the door behind you. Static striking through your hand, numb.

Logan had cried. Sobbed in the bathroom with the water running, as if you couldn’t hear when you’d finally walked in. Skin decidedly pinker, scrubbed clean, and hadn’t moved from the bed. It had broken your heart, seeing her like this. But you didn’t know what to do. Still don’t.

“Ortega… he _loves_ you, Logan. Really.” You’re not a liar.

You remember magazines. Speculations and gossip columns. Potentially doctored photographs, shoved in between guesses at who Sidestep really was. What they had looked like. Larger than life heroes, and the intimate details of their identities from second hand sources. Back then, it had seemed so fantastic, and you had always wanted to be a part of it, even for a second. Now, well.

“Not anymore.”

At her voice, you open your eyes. With that murmur, she has turned, shuffling just out of the way you hold her to rest her head back on the pillow. Nose to nose, and you want to just lose yourself in those dark eyes of hers. Otherworldly (you’re not afraid to be pulled in).

It’s weird, to want to argue this. To fight her, that she was loved, fiercely, by anyone other than yourself. You remember how Ortega spoke, the first day that Logan Walsh, Sidestep herself, was pronounced alive and well. About anything and everything, until Chen had intervened. It was entrancing, hearing it all over again. Caught up in the words, in the time. In him, and her.

Words and films hadn’t done her justice. She smiles, at that, but it’s sad and suffering. You don’t know how to get the message across for her.

“I can’t read his mind.”

“I know.”

“Then how do you know he does?” The question is soft, but the admission softer still. Far more private than you’d heard before. If you were any other kind of person, you might even say she was scared.

“Because I do. I know how he looks at you.” The same way you did, after all.

Logan is shaking. Sniffling as she turns to rest on her back. You only watch, as tears leak from the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” You know what she’s sorry about. Even as you try to brush the tears away, she still cries and cries and cries. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s _not_.”

A back and forth argument that you had been having on and off for a couple of weeks. Same sort of sad looks, as she believed she stood at the crossroads. Didn’t know where to step next. You wanted her to stop hurting, but there was no way for you to stem the bleed.

“It is. I promise you.”

“Not even you can promise something like this.”

“‘Course I can. I’m _Herald_. It’s my job.”

You get a laugh out of her, even if it was tired and bubbled by a sob. Enough to get her to look at you again. “Logan, I get it. I do.”

“I shouldn’t—do this to you. You don’t deserve this.”

“Shit happens.” And you shrug, because it sure as hell did.

“That’s not what this is.”

No, it’s not, you think with a wry smile. Some truth in that. But that was just the way things were, you found, since setting foot in Los Diablos. Five years too late for Heartbreak, not a year too soon to be able to hold Logan in your arms. If the time hadn’t added up the way it did, you know you wouldn’t be here, at this exact moment.

Three years spent the way it was, leading to this. A lot had happened. “It’ll work out.”

With a sigh, she might not be quite as far, but the tears still fall. Pooling in the pillows, and you only move to get her some tissues. “I know it will,” you reaffirm. Want to push, to get her to hear you and understand.

“I kissed him.”

“I know.”

“More than once.”

“Logan, you _told_ me.” Ortega was not her keeper, she had made that decidedly clear. But neither were you, no matter what she had convinced herself otherwise. A tenuous balance, tipping back and forth. You don’t know what you want.

Her face scrunches up once more. “Stop being so nice about it.” Confusing her. You can hear the accusation ring out loud.

“I’m not going to tell you who you can and can’t kiss.”

Heels of her palms pushed into her eyes, and she lets the silence drag, until: “I’m _so_ confused.”

So you sit up. A little awkwardly, knee still a little stiff. Back against the headboard, pillow under legs. With a sigh, you have to look anywhere but her. Where to from here? Ortega had seen her vulnerable, away from the flashy lights and hardsuit. Wiped away years of assumptions in one fell swoop.

“I don’t want to tell you what to do.”

Never been the idea or intent from the start. This wasn’t about pity, either, before you see those words fill her face. When she had showed herself, the secret she had been carrying for so long, you had thought of many things later. Questions and answers, but still that biting idea, that Ortega just didn’t know. You didn’t want to push Logan to tell him. To explain. Even though you knew it was always going to be the best and only outcome.

You had a million different thoughts, of how it was going to play out if the truth was avoided. Accidents weren’t really included in the equation. Maybe a broken helmet, or a dramatic reveal. And the dark. Perhaps that was how Ortega and Logan were, coming full circle — accidental identity reveals, and stumbling over love.

Her fingers push your fringe out of your face. “Don’t think about it like that.”

“I can’t ignore it… and neither can you.” Capture her palm, pressing your lips there. Hold her eyes steady. “Things happen, and I’d be an idiot to try and imagine it _not_ happening.”

“I’m hurting you.” Logan sighs, and you’re used to how she presses in by now. Holds your mind gently in her hands, sifting through it all.

But she’s wrong, in a way. Perhaps a first for her, judging by how she tries to piece it all together. Holds your gaze, trying to pick apart your brain.

You know what she was doing — trying to warp it, so that it suited her. Maybe made her feel worse, as there was that crutch in her, a kind that only came out when silences stretched on for too long and when the sun hung low. Trying to reassure herself that she was the reason.

“Logan… you couldn’t hurt me.” Knee notwithstanding, and it twinges at your words.

“But… Danny, this isn't what you wanted. I know it isn’t.”

“Shit happens,” you reiterate, a little more force behind you than you meant to have. “Not even you can control everything. Whatever happens, _happens_.”

Logan bites her lip, not happy with the response. If this was during the day maybe, a full nine hours sleep and dinner that didn’t churn in your gut, you know you would’ve copped flak for brushing everything off. Being too cavalier. You’re not sure if you wanted that, or the way that Logan was an exposed nerve, no longer bundling herself up and hiding every little aspect to fit into what she thought people needed.

Quietly, you hear the murmur. “I’m not supposed to feel this way.”

You can imagine the jump in thoughts. Down the rabbit hole, with an emphasis on tattoos and manufactured dreams. She tells herself she’s a machine, but you can feel the way her heart beats under your hand, how she breathes against your skin. You kiss Logan, and it’s not nearly as romantic as you’d hoped, with the tears and the fear. But you hope it reminds her that she’s alive and warm, human.

She kisses you back, slowly, as if just striving for contact. You want to tell her again and again. Over and over, just what you think, what you feel. It may never be enough, but you won’t tire of it, you’re sure. Logan just had to make it through tomorrow, and then?

Neither of you know. Settle for wrapping yourself around her, hands rubbing her back, coaxing her to sleep.

(because you know that you wouldn’t, anyway)


End file.
